


Until

by caitfair24



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mild Suggestiveness, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:34:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitfair24/pseuds/caitfair24
Summary: A relationship chronicled in kisses; set between Winter Soldier and Infinity War. My submission for day 9 of @itsbuckysworld's Hello Spring 2019 Writing Challenge on Tumblr. The prompt was "first kiss/last kiss."





	Until

_**Paris** _

A grey spring evening, rain sliding across the cobblestones of a tired street, and for a moment, you consider slipping off your shoes and running through the new puddles barefoot.

It’s a mad thought, and it dissipates just as quickly, leaving you with a small smile, a faint glow from the romance of the city, from the realization that you are finally here. Childhood daydreams blossoming into truth.

Doubt creeps in -- the wet rot of it, seeping through the cracks in the flimsier elements of your burgeoning identity, your growing sense of worth. What are your sunsets, then? Your Eiffel Towers? This is a city of ancient art and talent; a city built upon dreams and ages of light and darkness. Your sketches fade in your own hands, fingertips resisting the pull of an image yearning to be born, and you stop the labour; numb the birth pangs. Put away your notebook and go back to the real work.

But on nights like these, when the rain comes down so prettily and there’s wine on your lips, you remember what Paris is: hope.

Until the collision of reality, which stumbles drunkenly into your periphery on two mismatched feet, then four, then six. The cool kiss of your house keys between your fingers seems to remind you, of course, that things are not always hopeful and romantic; every city has its underbelly, its crueler truths. And this is no different.

When the first hand strikes, you jab out, catching only the loose edges of his sweater; your second thrust brushes skin, a sting that sends a curse streaking out into the night air. You’re almost there, almost home to the tiny, dusty flat above the pharmacy -- nearly there -- you should’ve taken your shoes off -- and then, and then --

Hands grab at you, even as you grasp the iron handle of home. A shriek, and then warmer, softer hands, pushing you into the soft glow of the foyer. You hear the small crack of bones and the yelps of weak men unused to good ones.

Your hair drips onto the peeling linoleum; fingers trembling, shoulders shaking, a drop of blood -- not yours -- staining a yellow flower below, straight from the sixties, faded now from fifty years of footsteps. “ _Es tu blessé_?”

A pair of piercing, glacier-blue eyes finds yours; skilled and sensitive hands roam your shoulders, your upper arms, looking for damage. He repeats his question, and you struggle through the simple translation, even as you struggle to remember his name. Dugan, wasn’t it? That was the name on the other flat’s placard, right? Dugan.

“Are you hurt?” he asks again, English this time.

“Non,” you mutter, shaking your head to loosen the panic, dash it away in favour of calm gratitude. “No, thank you -- I’m fine.”

He nods, that long dark hair shaking with the force of it. He notices you shivering, and shrugs out of his worn brown hoodie, tucks it around your shoulders. “They won’t be bothering you anymore,” he explains softly.

And because you’re frightened and exhilarated, because adrenalin floods your veins and he is there and he’s handsome and it’s a Parisian evening -- you lean forward and press your lips to his stubbled cheek.

He stiffens, takes a large step backwards, elbow bumping into the edge of the railing behind him. An apology slips from you, flushed and rueful.

But the taste of him, the warmth of him, lingers.

* * *

The spring wears on, months tripping by in long days of office work, heady afternoons of painting, midnight vigils of charcoal and wondering. James -- no longer just Dugan -- comes by more and more frequently. He’s a labourer, long hours of backbreaking work encourage necessitate warm baths to ease his muscles -- and yours is the only apartment with a tub. You offer it to him one evening when, heading up the stairs with groceries in hand, he leans briefly against the railing, rolling his shoulder to loosen the tension. 

He hesitates on the threshold the first time, bearing a ragged towel and a stack of clean clothes. When you hear the soft splash of water, a light groan of relief, you focus on unpacking the food, cleaning the counter. Small movements and sounds to let him know where you are, to ease the tension in his shoulders, remind him you’ll respect his privacy -- however much your mind luxuriates in mental images of soapy skin, of taut muscles giving way beneath the lap of warm water.

It becomes routine. You begin to crave the sight of him, hair rubbed not-quite-dry by the towel, droplets of water clinging to the spots on his neck he’s forgotten, soaking through the cuffs of his shirt. After, smelling of forests and mountains, he eats at your table. Whatever you’ve made -- salads, sometimes; cheese and bread other times. One night, the two of you dine on fruit, the sticky-sweet juice chasing down your wrists, shining in the candlelight. When you kiss him after, he tastes of plums, rich and dark and secret.

Love grows faster and sweeter than you’ve ever known. Maybe it’s his blue eyes, maybe it’s your age, maybe it’s Paris. By the time summer has bloomed, you measure days in tangled bedsheets, ink stains on his skin; the heartbeat of his nightmares, the ones that rocket him from the pillows, aching and raw in a darkness you can’t touch. Ones that make him afraid of the metal arm, what it might do to you.

You sketch him and paint him, trapping James in blues and golds, in memory and moments. He laughs when you do a sketch of him with shorter hair, clean-shaven and boyish. The longer he stares at it, though, the sadder his gaze becomes, untapped history weighing him down, and you put it away, tuck it deep inside a drawer. You climb into his embrace and you love away the memory.

It’s a love story illuminated by pale lights and hand-carved romance --  precisely what you always wanted, craved, needed from the world. A quiet man of story and mystery, one whose hands trace your body as though he’s terrified of forgetting it. One who kisses you awake and goodnight. One who whispers sweet nothings into the shell of your ear and the palm of your hand, letting you carry this tiny summer love with you wherever you go.

And when they shatter it -- with a slim black gun and blood on your floor -- you weep for the bathtub left behind. For the memory of his legs trapping yours, bubbles bursting on shared, scented skin.

* * *

_**Bucharest** _

His apology greets you first -- every morning. Whereas most lovers wake the one beside them with promises, with gratitude, with sultry sweet praises, James wakes you with apology. A plea for forgiveness unspoken but firmly nestled between each word.

“It’s alright,” you say softly, brushing the hair from his eyes. The heat of the sleeping bag is growing too thick, so you struggle out from the confines, in search of breakfast, of distraction. Anything to ease the hunger, the hunger he’s been too afraid, too sorry to sate since Paris.

Hydra. The name stinks of monsters, of fear. Slithers through your mind every now and then, rearing one of its many heads. It slips into your art, darkening Paris memories with grittier truths, so that you find yourself sketching torn roads, broken trees, a planet hollowed and aching. James no longer asks to see your work, and you no longer draw him.

Until one night. One night when the longing grows too heated, and you come to him with a dream clutched in your hand -- a tub, brimming with bubbles and want, claw-footed and ancient on cracked tiles. “Please,” you whisper.

He’s not in the sketch, neither are you -- but memory fills in the blanks. And together, you claim the dusty, ramshackle flat anew. In a hot press of skin on skin, limbs tangled and entwined. A wave that rises and crests against the shore, again and again, as you find your way back to him, and he to you, in this new city, this city of autumn breezes and old strife. A language that you cannot speak, one that rolls and twists, less sugary than French, but no less intoxicating, as it spills from his lips and into your ear: Romanian is wine, dark and heady. Plum juice dripping down your wrist.

In the morning, James wakes lighter than you have seen him in weeks. A smile on his lips; eyes full of you. “Are you hungry?” he asks, stretching his arms high above his head. Covetously, you observe the rippling and tautening of his muscles, run your hand over the expanse of his chest.

“A little,” you say, a laugh gilding the edge of the words. “Hand me one of the protein bars, please?”

But he shakes his head. A morning after a night like that deserves a banquet, a meal of decadence. Not protein bars, not stale cereal or greasy bacon in a pan he really should be scrubbing better. No, a morning after a night like that requires something grander. Something sweeter.

A kiss to your temple sends you reeling, cascading back into the pleasure of the night’s reunion. “I’ll be right back.” He slips from your arms, shrugs into yesterday’s jeans, a pilled t-shirt, the red henley you borrow on colder nights. A brown hoodie, a canvas jacket. Gloves. He tucks his long hair back behind his ears, nestles a cap on his head.

Hydra crawls all over the world, but you can’t hide away all the time. He’s hoping that the casualty he left behind in Paris was a solitary incident, a vigilante who simply got lucky. This simple disguise is enough to make him forgettable, just another man in the crowd. “Where’s the gun?” he murmurs against your lips. “Show me, sweetheart.”

A biscuit tin, empty now, perched innocently on the lowest shelf, near the window. It’s become your new goodbye, when he has to leave for work and you can’t go with him -- he asks you to show him the gun, to show him you can get to it, can load it and aim it if need be. His biggest fear is the height of the apartment, the knowledge that you have only one way out, but that can’t be helped. A casual labourer and a street artist, selling sketches of Bucharest landmarks and sentimental tourists -- they can’t afford anything else.

He leaves you wrapped in a blanket, heading for the shower. He leaves you with a promise, with a sparkle in your gaze and a wink just for him.

* * *

Down in the market, he weaves through the busy stalls, surprised to realize just how late you’ve both slept in. James knows what he’s looking for: deep, bruised violet, soft to the touch. Juicy and plump enough to make a mess, a mess he fully intends to clean up himself. His desire rises again, and it’s a continual surprise; you’ve woken him up. Ever since Paris, ever since the first night, when your eyes, wild with fear and small courage, had shaken something loose inside him.

Over and over again, you wake him. Remind him of older days, stirring the faint, tender ghosts of who he had been. When you say his name -- James -- in sighs and laughter, occasionally in irritation, and once in absolute ire, it roots him to the moment, anchors him to the future, built on a past he can scarcely recall. But together, you’re building the story.

Back in Paris, you would sketch his memories. Paint his past. A golden-haired man; a sepia stream of consciousness; his mother’s apron; his sisters’ smiles. And in this way, together, you build him again.

“How are they?” he asks, in fluent Romanian. He picks up a few plums, gives them a few gentle squeezes with his left hand. “Are they good?”

Of course, the vendor tells him they’re good. What else would he say? “They’re ripe,” James observes. “Um, okay then, give me...six.” Three for him; three for you. That’s a fine breakfast. “Thank you,” he says, handing over the change.

He wanders, looking for a stall selling flowers. You’ll laugh at him, tell him not to waste his money on sentiment. But a girl needs flowers, now and then, he thinks. Remembers a woman -- maybe his mother -- telling him that, a long, long time ago. Flowers will brighten the grimy flat, too.

But then the worlds collide, history compresses, and he’s caught. His only thought is you. He has to get to you.

* * *

**_Wakanda_ **

You become someone different in Wakanda, while he sleeps. A royal commission sees you elevated, cosseted. They call you an artist, and you preen under the praise. Study under master craftsmen and -women. Learn techniques ancient and new. When you paint sunsets now, you paint in colours you’ve never seen in the sky, but it brings tears to your eyes.

Months slip by. In loneliness, in long nights. In plums crushed between your teeth and baths gone cold.

Steve comes. A repeated surprise, a friendship by association. With him, you’re able to laugh again, to drink. To go out to a restaurant, show off your work, talk about him.

And then Bucky wakes. Not James anymore, although sometimes it slips out. He comes back to you quieter, as though chastened. Purged. He apologizes for the arm, but you just tip your head back and laugh, assure him you know he’s capable of doing plenty with just one hand. But just in case you don’t believe him, he reminds you that night. Again and again. Under the Wakandan moon, lit from within by a hope you can share.

You sketch the goats and paint the fields; the rise of the leafy jungle in the distance. As he tends them, the two of you grow back and forward with each other, coming to know the newer versions of the other and recalling the better parts of your past -- warm, soapy water; sweet fruit; unbroken promises. When he apologizes for Bucharest, for the arrest, for the fear, for going to Siberia and hiding you in that strange plane, your mouth brands absolution onto his skin. For each imagined sin.

“Good morning,” you say, the day of the end. Rolling over to gasp at the way the sunlight traces his face, catching a silver thread in his beard, glowing where it meets his tan. “I’m going to paint you today.” You nuzzle into his neck, earning a groan of restrained delight.

“I don’t have time now,” he murmurs back, thumb stroking small but mighty circles onto your bare back. “Maybe later, sweetheart.”

You twist and turn about the house, cleaning and painting at the same time. A splash of colour, then a straightened blanket; a few strands of hair, curling out from the canvas, and then you sweep the floor. It’s a strange dance, artistic and domestic by turns, but there’s something so comforting about having to do both. There’s music in it. 

Music that abruptly screeches to a halt when he strides in, suddenly a soldier. 

“You’re going to the palace,” Bucky says briskly. “Pack a few clothes. Where’s your sketchbook?”

With his left arm, he reaches for a bag in the corner. 

With his _left arm_. 

It’s a small life he packs for you -- jeans and t-shirts and a nightdress. A few of your sketches, just two or three. One of the Eiffel Tower, one of the apartment in Bucharest, and one of him. Bucky and his goats. 

There is little time to explain, but he does his best. Striding towards the palace and the room the Queen has set aside for you. As he showers and prepares, he tells you of the threat from the stars, from the war brewing on the horizon. “I don’t understand,” you say dully, picking idly at the elegant bedspread. “Is this bad? Like really bad?”

Your words bring a flush to your cheeks; they’re so flimsy and young. He stops then, after buckling into the new jacket, the one so similar to the oldest one, the one he’d fallen in, such a long time ago. Bucky’s face softens as he gazes at you, as he takes two steps closer and you scoot to the edge of the bed; as he cups your face in his hands, cradling your jaw in his tender grip. 

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says heavily, voice weighted with too many years of _this_. Though he’s never, he realizes, had to say goodbye to you like this before. Siberia doesn’t count; things were too rushed, too heated. But this? This is war all over again. This is standing at the docks, the taste of mingled tears, a heartbeat just a skip off-key. “It’s bad, but don’t worry. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. Promise.”

His lips meet yours in a storm of emotion, of starving time, of deep, deep want. Your hands roam, pulling him close, running your fingers through his hair as though trying to keep him there, tether him there with you. “Don’t go,” you murmur, and it’s a weak plea. An age-old plea. The plea of lovers and mothers, a warrior in their arms and that knowledge, that dark knowledge, plaguing the goodbye. Tainting it with a keen, sharp awareness that this might be the last goodbye, this might be forever. 

And so you savour it, both of you. You drink it deep, hands memorizing and begging for more time, for one more minute. He falls into you, and you roll, giving him room on the soft bed and not complaining when the buckle of his jacket presses into you, the empty holster on his thigh scrapes against your bare leg. It’s a strange collision -- you in summer shorts and a silken shirt; him dressed for a fight. But the little pain of his clothing against you seems to smack of some poetry the world has forgotten -- the beauty of soft and hard; the bittersweet tang of goodbyes. 

But you don’t say it. You say, “I love you,” and you brand him again with hot, open-mouthed kisses at his jaw and down his neck, so that he leaves for the battle, for the reunion, with the faintest spring in his step -- the taste of your kiss on his tongue, the exchange of love on the air, the comforting knowledge that _you will be safe there_. 

And even though it’s foolish, you draw a bath. Weigh your parting words in your own mind as you slip beneath the bubbles. You soak away the fear, the distant thunder of war and battle-cries, and you feel yourself drift off, off away into feathery, warm depths, where all that matters is a pair of “ _I love yous,_ ” rather than “goodbyes,” and the sweet, gentle bruise of his last kiss on your lips


End file.
